Our original ss water tank had failed in Vanuatu.  We managed to patch it up with 5200 and that held for the passage but the first time I filled the tank with hose from the dock the seam broke again. The yard metal worker said he would not guarantee a repair since there was not much metal to weld on, so I decided to replace it.

The shop the yard recommended was backlogged and waiting for them to build the tank would have stretched our stay in Cairnes past the beginning of the tropical cyclone season.

Fortunately, we found a young guy who was starting his own custom tank-building business, and he fabricated a new tank out of thermo-welded polyethylene.  One of the pics shows that tank under construction with the baffles installed.  He used the old tank as a template for the dimensions of the new tank.  The added wall thickness decreased the capacity of the new tank by about 10 gallons.  It has been in service since 2011 with no problems.  We reused the ss inspection port lit from the old tank, since it already had the hole bore in it for the Wema sensor gauge.

He had several large tanks under construction, in his shop, for waste, water, and fuel for tugboats and Australian navy ships.  A tank like that seems like it would be a good alternative to the black iron fuel tank on my boat if I ever have to deal with that problem.

John Lewis
s/v Active Transport
Marina del Rey, CA